


words are futile devices

by androids_fighting93



Series: never let me go [4]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Communication, Domestic Bliss, Fluff, Kravitz POV, M/M, POV Second Person, Polyamory, Post-Finale, Set after "build a nest of yellow yarn", Ways To Say I Love You, just covering all my bases with those relationship tags lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2019-01-29 21:23:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12639453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/androids_fighting93/pseuds/androids_fighting93
Summary: “This is good,” Taako says.“The coffee?” You know he doesn’t mean the coffee.“All of it.” He lifts his head and regards you, in a way that reminds you, perhaps blasphemously, of the way your Raven Queen regards you, like they don’t need to look at your body because they can see your soul just fine. “Think I’ll keep you.”(Taako doesn't know how to express his feelings, Magnus gives good advice, and Kravitz waxes poetic on being among the living again.)





	words are futile devices

**Author's Note:**

> I should really be doing Nanowrimo right now, but seeing as it's day five and I've just been writing cavity inducing fluff instead....
> 
> We're jumping around in the "timeline" a little here - this is after the finale. I'll fill in the gaps later but this demanded to be written. It also demanded to be in second person which is weird but I like being in Kravitz's weird head, so it works for me. If you're confused go back and read "strong enough to break your fall, should you fall" which is the first fic in this little series.
> 
> Title is from Futile Devices from Sufjan Stevens, which now that I'm listening to it is giving me some Kravitz/Magnus feels so there's that. https://open.spotify.com/track/4VNWVzVj6QnNwasZBjPGdu

As always, you offer to help with the cleaning, after all your bellies are full of pot roast and pumpkin pie and Angus has nearly fallen asleep in his plate after insisting loudly that he wasn’t tired yet. Taako, of course, cooked, so the pile of dishes in the sink are yours and Magnus’s domain as Taako tucks the World's Greatest Detective into bed. He complains that the boy is too old to be spoiled like this while simultaneously insisting on  giving him all the little things that he never got when he and Lup were children, and you have to smile watching them together, how Angus rolls with all of Taako and Magnus’s teasing with a gap-toothed grin and gives as good as he gets.

Magnus chats with you as you move around the kitchen together, washing and drying dishes and wiping down countertops, companionable work. He’s training service dogs to help people with things like trauma or disabilities, and the way he talks about the project with such passion fills you with pride. But your mind isn’t on the conversation, for a little while now you’ve just responded with vaguely interested sounding hums. You are, unfortunately, ruminating. Specifically on the three times (you counted) today that you told Taako you love him, because you do and you want him to know, and you aren't sure he believes you.

“You still with us, Kravitz?” You blink at the hand, covered in soap bubbles, waving in front of your face. Magnus is looking at you, amused but curious, and you duck your head. You really hadn’t been listening to a word you said, and it wasn’t because he isn’t interesting. You adore talking to him - and you hope he knows that.

“Sorry,” you say, picking up a dish to dry and putting it away. “I’m a bit… distracted.”

“Something on your mind?”

“It’s… nothing. I’m probably being foolish.” But you sigh, betraying yourself, and Magnus notices right away.

“Alright, this can wait,” Magnus proclaims, wiping his hands and then going to the refrigerator to pull out two cold ciders, handing one to you. You let him lead you to the living room, sitting down with him on the couch - you have to sit right next to each other because Johann-the-Dog has claimed one end for his bed and will not budge for anyone, but you don’t really mind that.

It’s rare for the house to be so quiet, there are always various people in and out, staying in one of the many empty guest rooms - Angus is always here, of course, when he’s not away at school, and Lup and Barry still live here while Magnus builds a little cabin for them not far away, just on the other side of the river that marks the back of this property. They’re working tonight, had convinced you to let them cover some of your assignments so that you can have extra time with Taako and Magnus for once. Merle brings his children by all the time, Ren always over working with Taako on plans for their school (the guest room she uses is practically just hers, now) and Carey and Killian are regular guests. It’s a bustling, busy household, and there’s always more than enough food on the stove to feed an unexpected visitor. They haven’t even been here long, but though you still live in the Astral Plane it feels right to come here, feels like home. Tonight, though, it’s only the four of you, and you have a rare moment alone with Magnus.

“C’mon, talk to me,” Magnus urges, taking a drink of his cider.

“It’s… hard to explain?” You don’t open the bottle just yet. “It’s probably nothing to even worry about.”

Magnus takes another drink and then sets the bottle aside, while you try to twist off the cap of yours. “Well, if you’re worried about it, then it clearly _is_ something to worry about.”

“Maybe. It’s… it’s Taako. You know I’ve told him that I... well. That I love him.”

There’s a certain smile Magnus gets, when you and Taako are together, like affection is welling up too fast in him and it has to escape through his face. “Oh yeah. He pretty much told me right away. Not that anyone couldn’t have seen it, you had it _bad._ ”

You grin despite yourself, ducking your head. “I suppose I did.”

“I’m happy for you two, you know. He deserves all the love.”

“The thing is…” You hesitate. You feel stupid even worrying about this, but it does itch at the edge of your mind sometimes. Perhaps this is one of the many things you don't understand because you forgot to how to act like people, all those years when your existence was just your job, all those years before Taako. “I tell him whenever I get a chance. But he doesn’t? Say it? I think he did once, but - I don’t know.”

“Ahh.” Magnus nods, letting you go on.

“And I don’t want him to say it just because he feels obligated to but... Do you think I did something wrong? Has he said anything to you?”

“No, no, I don’t think it’s you at all, man.” Magnus reaches out, squeezing the hand that isn’t holding your cider. You turn your palm up and hold his hand, making yourself look into his eyes despite your embarrassment. You don’t really know how to talk about these things, but Magnus knows Taako better than anyone besides Lup, and in a hundred years they must have had every sort of relationship talk there is. It would be easy to be jealous of them, but you find that you aren’t. Haven’t been since the very beginning and even that was out of a sense of obligation, you’re supposed to be jealous when you find that your boyfriend is in love with someone else, but you were included in that love from the beginning, not excluded.

“Well if it isn’t me then does he not…?” And you don’t finish that sentence, it doesn’t sound right, but you aren’t sure what other conclusion to draw.

“He loves you, Krav. Don’t you worry about that. This is just… kind of how Taako is.”

“What do you mean?” You know Taako has a lot of problems that he doesn’t really address, some solved by regaining his lost memory, some exacerbated by it. He wasn't shy, when you first started seeing him, about letting you know that he is, in his own words, “a grade-A headcase.” Maybe there are trust issues of some kind at play here? But surely you’ve proven yourself trustworthy?

Magnus thinks for a moment. His thumb brushes over your hand, warm where you’re cool. You don’t spend a lot of time just the two of you, though you know there is something building here between you. Even from the beginning this arrangement was not just Taako-and-Magnus and Taako-and-Kravitz, but Taako-Kravitz-Magnus though you haven’t talked in specifics about what that means. It had just felt natural, the very night you fell together you had cuddled, all three of you, in Taako’s bed for hours. Talking, and touching, and kissing. You didn’t kiss Magnus, that night, but you have done since then.  And you spend the nights with both of them, in the bed they share, in the house they share, and though you don’t live here they make you feel like you are an intrinsic part of it.

“He doesn’t believe in words, so much,” Magnus finally says. “I mean, he’s a liar. He’s had to lie a lot just to survive. And he’s had a lot of people lie to him, too. So I guess he just doesn’t think it’s that meaningful, because it’s so easy to say without meaning it.”

You frown. You aren’t sure how Magnus can say something like that so casually. “So he just doesn’t say it at all in case it's a lie?”

“When he thinks it’s really important, he does. You know we’ve been together, what, a lifetime now? If I really tried I think I could count all the times he actually said it in words.”

“And that doesn’t bother you.”

“It did. At first. ‘Til I started learning his language, I guess. His love-language or whatever.” He smiles a little, staring off into space. “He doesn’t say it. But he loves to show it every day.”

You scoot a little closer to Magnus, still holding his hand. Eager now to know, so that you know what to watch for and how to show your love in return. It has been a very long time since you were in a relationship, you aren’t always sure you have it right. “How?” You ask.

Magnus shrugs, looking almost sheepish now. “Oh, I don’t know. Not big gestures, really, but stuff like… well, for me, I didn’t know a whole lot about magic when we started the Starblaster mission, but after we got closer he was always really good about explaining that stuff to me. He didn’t make me feel stupid when I didn’t get it. And you know how he likes feeling superior, so that’s a big deal. It’s the little things he does for people, I guess. Remembering how you like your coffee in the morning. Or making sure you eat enough. Putting effort into people - that means more from Taako than any words, you know?”

You nod, slowly, filing all of this information away for later reference. Coffee and food translate to love. And you’re thinking about Taako upstairs right now, tucking Angus into bed, maybe giving him a glass of water and reading him a chapter of a story. Taako keeping soy milk in the fridge for Barry, without being asked. Taako when you and he were still technically enemies, meeting with you (powerful, terrifying you) alone to bargain for his friends’ safety and the safety of an entire town, and he hadn’t even told anyone, he had done it not to put anyone in his debt but simply to protect them. Couldn’t have known you wouldn’t just try to kill him once you had him alone, but he did it anyway.

You smile as you think of Taako telling you to be careful, to come back safe, every time you go to work, even though he knows there is very little in this world that can kill you.

“Does that help?” Magnus asks gently, bringing your attention back to the present. Your hand in his has gotten very warm, but you don’t let go. “If it’s important for you to hear it, I’m sure he’d be okay with you telling him that.”

“No, it’s… it helps a lot, actually. I’ll remember that.”

“I know he loves you, Krav. I know he’s glad you’re here.” Magnus pauses, then goes on, “And so am I.”

You meet his eyes and find yourself blushing. There is still a part of you that worries, once in awhile, that you’re an intruder in their space. Magnus always helps alleviate those fears, even when he doesn’t realize he’s doing it. He makes sure to carve out a space for you, and you fit there perfectly.

“Me too,” you say, squeezing his hand. You look at him and want to kiss him, and that is such a simple thing, now. You're allowed. He tastes like cider when you do, soft and quick, and his other hand comes up to cup your cheek. “Thank you,” you murmur, eyes still closed, and you feel him smile.

“Hachi machi, don’t stop there, this is the beginning of like _every_ fantasy I got.”

You laugh, bumping your forehead against Magnus’s before sitting back, looking up at Taako where he’s standing behind the couch. Already in his pajamas, and waiting for you to join him upstairs. He’s looking at you, at both of you, with such transparent affection (and perhaps a little lust) that, on the growing list of ways that Taako says “I love you,” you think that look may be at the very top.

* * *

You wake early, with hints of sunlight beginning to tease through the closed curtains, illuminating dust in the air and making Taako’s hair halo-bright and soft in this morning glow. He’s enveloped in Magnus’s arms, always the little spoon, and you smile watching them sleep for a little while. There is some kind of privilege in bearing witness to the two of them and the way they move around and with each other like planets in orbit. You would love Taako even if it wasn’t the three of you together, but there is something so complete about what you have, something whole. Hard to put words to it but the feeling is there, a fullness like a well-rounded meal.

You slip out of bed long before they wake - and it must be very early, because Angus isn’t up either - feeling what you’ve begun to recognize as pangs of hunger. Go down to a kitchen that isn’t yours, technically, but feels something like home, to make yourself toast, a silly exercise when you don’t actually need food, but you find yourself enjoying rituals like breakfast. You like early mornings, like watching dew evaporate from the grass and the world glittering and coming alive. The smell of toast cooking, the scratch of the knife and butter against the bread, the stickiness of honey. You’ve discovered that you have a penchant for sweets, for pastries and chocolates, which Taako indulges perhaps too much, delights in making new things for you. You’ve discovered that you don’t have a tolerance for spicy food (enjoy the flavor, but not the burning, so Taako is working on this invention called “mild salsa” so that you can actually enjoy tacos), and that split-pea soup is the worst creation known to mortal-kind. You already knew you liked to read, it's a good way to pass time, but never expected that you’d actually become invested in the detective novels that you read with Angus at bedtime, taking turns reading the short chapters aloud and competing to see who can do the worst character voices.  You’ve discovered lots of things about yourself since Taako came into your life like a tidal wave, things that weren't so important when you were alone.

The longer you spend in this form, the longer you’re in the Material Plane, the more these little mortal things become apparent to you. Feelings like hunger, thirst. The need for sleep. The _want_ for sleep, that one has been interesting, you’d forgotten all about dreaming, about the pleasure of silk sheets and waking up to your lover drooling on your shoulder. Things about your body that you hadn’t put particular thought to in a century but you do now, like the scars that Taako traces his fingers over that you suppose you must have sustained in life, but you can’t remember how. Like your tattoos, which surely had a meaning but are now simply beautiful. Things like changing your hair, once in awhile, just because Taako said he liked how it looked down.

You aren’t mortal, you will not die if you don’t have toast each morning though your construct mimics circulation and breath and digestion. Impossible to forget what you really are, and you don’t want to, you have to be able to put on your skeletal form and enforce the laws of life and death. You like your job, you find fulfillment in it, but there is more now. More to you than you remembered, layers that Taako is bit-by-bit peeling away, like an onion (you don’t like onions, this is another thing you have discovered - so like a layer cake, maybe) until one of these days you think there will be nothing left for him to discover about you. You suppose you will just have to create new things for him to learn.

You hear Taako before you see him, soft footsteps padding in and he stops next to you, yawning and bumping your shoulder with his head, a bit like a cat. From that very first time you saw him in that crystalline landscape, your first impression has always been _color!_ He is so bright, to you, oftentimes you look at mortals and they blur together in gray, all just lives burning out, but he was never like that, never let himself be just like every other mortal. You are learning, you think, to love Magnus too, but there has never been another mortal like Taako for you, not in all your long years. You haven’t said this, but you think Taako knows. And you like the time you get to spend with both him and Magnus but you like the moments alone too, so you kiss the top of his head and murmur, “Good morning, love,” in his ear, breaking the quiet.

“Too early,” he whines. “Didn’t get to wake up with you.”

“Sorry. It’s hard for me to sleep for that long.”

“S’okay. Just miss you.” Taako yawns again, punctuated with a little squeak, it makes your heart jump with affection. The longer you spend in this form the warmer you become, the warmer your blood flows. There is almost certainly a scientific or magical explanation for this phenomenon, but sometimes you feel warmer just from being with Taako, so there’s an embarrassing part of you that likes to think you’re warmed by love. You don’t tell Taako this because he would absolutely never stop making fun of you if you did. “You make coffee?” He asks.

“Not yet.”

“I’ll do it.” He drags himself away from you and sets to filling up the kettle, and you watch him for a moment, your breakfast forgotten. You’ve seen him in dozens of wild outfits (your tastes in clothing are nothing alike, but you both share an appreciation for the finer things nonetheless) but you like this best: an old t-shirt of Magnus’s, boxer-briefs, and slippers, his hair a mess from your hands tangled in it late last night, blinking sleep from his eyes. You could wake up to it every morning, you think, for the rest of eternity, and never tire of it. Of him.

“I’m going to sit outside,” you say, and Taako nods, mumbling that he’ll meet you out there. You take your plate out onto the back porch of the house, which overlooks their yard, the dog kennels, Magnus’s shed-turned-woodshop, and the overgrown grass no one really cares to trim (once, you caught Lup and Barry using their scythes to cut the grass and had to give them a stern talking to about the appropriate use of the Raven Queen’s gifts.) Whenever you spend time here, ravens flock to the yard, both the Raven Queen’s messengers and the mundane sort, and these are the latter so you wave them off before sitting down. Magnus installed a swinging bench out on the deck and you sit here, taking each bite of food slow, savoring flavor, savoring hunger. Mortal things. Your mind isn’t ruminating nearly as much after the conversation with Magnus, after the reassurances he offered, you are able to sit and merely observe the slow morning. Another new member of the family, an elderly great dane that Magnus recently adopted when her owners couldn’t continue taking care of her, sleeps by your feet.

Taako emerges after a time, two steaming mugs in his hands, and comes to stand by you. “Here,” he says, handing you a mug. “Cream and way too much sugar.”

You take it, looking up at him and cradling the warm cup between your cool hands. It is nothing particularly special but it’s exactly how you like it. “You remembered,” you say, eyes wide, far more emotional than is strictly appropriate.

He blinks down at you. “It’s two ingredients, Krav.”

You set it and your plate aside and wrap your arms around his middle, ignoring his soft “oof!” and pressing your face into the softness of his belly. You adore his smell, orange blossoms and incense and a hint of Magnus on his shirt and just the feeling of him, living and breathing and with you, and your breath hitches, fingers tightening in his shirt. You love him, you love him, and he loves you.

“Are you fuckin’ crying?” Taako laughs, a hand coming to rest at the back of your neck.

“No,” you say, muffled by his shirt. It’s only half a lie, you’re sure you won’t be on the verge of it when you let go.

“...just, uh, real passionate about coffee, huh?”

What you think is, _I could dissolve into nothing and let you hold my soul in your hands and I know I’d be safe because I belong to you. Utterly and completely I am yours._

There are things mortals can’t say directly, that you’ve learned they have to skate around the edges of; you haven’t learned why they do this, but you are learning how to pretend to be like them.

What you say is, “Yes, that must be it.”

“Weirdo.” You know he’s rolling his eyes without having to look at him.

You lift the hem of his over-sized shirt to show his stomach, the edge of his underwear riding low, and bite teasingly at his hipbone where it sticks out. It earns you a smack on the arm and you finally let him go, grinning (and _not_ crying, not even a little) as he settles on the bench by you, legs draped over yours, sipping at his coffee while you eat your technically unnecessary toast. Birds start singing and the world comes alive but he is only looking at you. There are times, especially when it’s been awhile between visits, when he is near frantic with touching you, even with looking at you, like he has to consume every inch of you he can before you disappear. You like those times just fine. Like the way he claims you, the way he can easily convince you to do anything he wants. But you like these times, too. Times when you don’t even need to talk, really, when you can merely sit and exist in the same space.

“This is good,” he says, and sounds satisfied, the way he sounds when he tastes a new recipe and gets it just right.

“The coffee?” You know he doesn’t mean the coffee.

“All of it.” He lifts his head and regards you, in a way that reminds you, perhaps blasphemously, of the way your Raven Queen regards you, like they don’t need to look at your body because they can see your soul just fine. He smiles, crooked and gap toothed and breathtaking, not despite it but because of it. You know he doesn’t have his disguise spell on now, but you honestly don’t know the difference. “Think I’ll keep you.”

You think that would be just fine.

You don’t know how long he sits with you, how long he stays snuggled up under your arm. You’re sure that the world is turning, sure that inside people are waking up and getting ready to begin their days but you feel separate from that, and words like _forever,_ or _always_ , seem both infinitesimal and infinite. You wish you didn’t have to return to work tonight, and you say so.

“You could stay,” he says, after a moment.

“Like I said, I have to leave tonight. Lup and Barry can’t cover me forever.”

“Not tonight. I mean you could _stay._ If you want.” He leans heavy on your side and you’re quiet for perhaps too long.

You are not mortal. You don’t know how to live among them, anymore, you forgot a long time ago the same way you forgot your mother's face and if you had a family and how it felt to sleep and dream, did away with childish things that distracted you from your purpose until Taako reminded you in a flash of color and brightness and, bizarrely, magic black tentacles.

“Listen, you’re always here when you’re not at work anyway,” Taako is going on. He hides the anxiety in his voice but his ears press back flat against his head. “And you keep talking about wanting to have a garden. Just saying. Think about it?”

You hug him closer to your side, and he is pliant in your arms, legs tucked up underneath him. What you think is, _I don’t know how to live like people do, but I can pretend. Show me how._ What you say is, “I’ve been thinking about keeping bees.”

He laughs. “Bees?”

“Bees. They’ll help the garden.”

“Sure. We’ll have bees,” he says, and kisses your cheek. “Weirdo. I just wanted one cat, but guess we’re a bees and dogs household here.”

You’re making a list in your head, have been compiling it since you talked to Magnus last night, of ways Taako says _I love you_ without actually saying it. The coffee is one thing, and you sip it and it's too much sugar and feel warm. Added to that list now is _you can stay,_ is _I will keep you._

And how wonderful, you think, to have so many ways to say three words, to have centuries stretching out ahead of you to learn every way there is.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! AO3 has been doing weird things with formatting lately so bear with me, I'll try and fix what I notice.  
> Hit me up on tumblr if you wanna cry about these boys with me @androidsfighting


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